U.S. Pat. No. 5,505,902, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a method in which one or more metal salts of at least one iron group metal containing organic groups are dissolved and complex bound in at least one polar solvent with at least one complex former comprising functional groups in the form of OH or NR.sub.3, (R=H or alkyl). Hard constituent powder and, optionally, a soluble carbon source are added to the solution. The solvent is evaporated and remaining powder is heat treated in an inert and/or reducing atmosphere. As a result, coated hard constituent powder is obtained which after addition of a pressing agent can be compacted and sintered according to standard practice to a body containing hard constituents in a binder phase.
A problem with said method is that the heat treatment of the coated powder in larger quantities (&gt;1 kg) has to be performed in pure hydrogen and/or with unnecessary high gas flows in order to obtain the desired carbon content which for cemented carbide has to be kept in a very narrow range.